1.AHAVAT YISRAEL - THE FOUNDATION OF TORAH
Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook thought that all of the Torah is founded
upon Ahavat Yisroel. He emphasized that learning to love our nation, Israel,
was the foremost educational task of our time. His father had written that
Ahavah and Emunah were the two principles of Torah which needed to be
strengthened the most, and Rav Tzvi Yehuda personified them both. True Ahavah,
he said, is an encompassing orientation to all of creation, which is achieved
only though learning. The strengthening of Ahavah leads to the strenghthening
of Emunah. Therefore, increasing Ahavah was to be the focus of all of energies
in working to rebuild our nation.
2. RAV KOOK'S AHAVAH
When you ask former students of Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook about their
Rosh Yeshiva, everyone mentions his towering Emunah, his humility, and his
scholarship in all of the Torah. However, the quality mentioned the most is his
love - his joyful Ahavah for his students, his Ahavah for Am Yisrael, and his
heartfelt Ahavah for all of the world.
When you speak with these students, a great number of whom are
Roshei Yeshivot, and rabbis of cities and settlements all over Israel, each one
speaks about the special relationship and closeness he shared with Rav Tzvi
Yehuda, like that of a favorite student. Yet, Rav Tzvi Yehuda didn't prefer one
student more then another. He made everyone in his presence feel like a special
son.
This is simply his way - to give all of himself, all of his love
and attention to every one of his students, and to every person who came to
speak with him. Even when someone came with some seemingly small matter to
discuss, Rav Tzvi Yehuda would always take as much time as was needed to
help.
Whenever he met with someone, all of the time they were together,
that person was the most important person in the world. This love and concern
was something everyone felt. His connection with his students was especially
deep. Sometimes, when a student came to him with a problem, Rav Tzvi Yehuda
would give an answer before a question was even asked. If he heard that a
student was ill, he would go to visit him in his dormitory room with a gift of
honey and fruit. If a boy required a special diet, the Rosh Yeshiva would go to
the Yeshiva's kitchen and give instructions what to cook. He worried about our
finances, and arranged for grand's for students who needed assistance. And if
he discovered that a boy needed clothes, he would take him to a store and buy
him the item hr lacked.
His love was so overflowing, he would often spontaneously embrace
his students and shower them with kisses.
The same love he felt for each individual Jew, he felt for Am
Yisrael. Everything he did, every subject he taught, had its foundation in
Ahava. This is the Ahava which finds its keenest expression in the Torah of
Eretz Yisrael. Its is a love which transcends all pettiness, and divisiveness,
and which encompasses the world. Even when an occasion demanded boldness,
protest, or reproof, Rav Tzvi Yehuda spoke out of a deep and sincerely felt
love.
The Rosh Yeshiva taught that in returning to our Holy Land, and
to our holy Hebrew language, we must be especially careful concerning the
purity of our speech. Along with loving every Jew, we were to avoid speaking
Lashon Hara against Am Yisrael and against Eretz Yisrael. The study of Shmirat
HaLashon by the Chofetz Chaim was a daily requirement at the Yeshiva, and a
practice which Rav Tzvi Yehuda personally upheld.
On the question of how to bring someone closer to Torah, Rav
Tzvi Yehuda answered, with Ahavah.
His identification with the nation of Israel was total. A
student, who lived with Rav Tzvi Yehuda during the years of his life, recalls
an occasion when the Rosh Yeshiva was tortured with terrible pains. Physicians
examined him and couldn't find anything wrong. Finally, after long questioning,
they discovered the source of the problem. His pains had begun with murder of
eleven Israeli athletes in Munich. They were the sufferings of Am Yisrael.
Rav Tzvi Yehuda's identification with the nation wasn't an
abstract concept, but an actual, day-to-bay attachment with the soul, and body,
of the Clal. Once, Rav Yosef Bedeki recalls, Rav Kook awoke in a fright in the
middle of the night and said, "A horrible thing happened to me". In the
morning, it was reported that an official in the government had committed
suicide during the night, the same hour Rav Tzvi Yehuda had awoken.
His love embraced everyone. Once, after a class, a student asked
which was preferable - to be religious and anti-Zionist, or to be a Zionist and
religious. Rav Tzvi Yehuda answered in a loud voice: "We need to love all of
Am Yisrael! It isn't our task to judge the value of Jews!".
Repeatedly, he would emphasize that in the Blessing before
the Morning Shema, we say that Hashem grants a special choseness to, his nation
with love. Rav Tzvi Yehuda explained that this love encompassed all of the
nation, and not only selected Tzaddikim. Just as Hashem's love for Israel
encompasses all of the nation, so must we in following the ways of Hashem, love
all of Am Yisrael.
In teaching us to love all of Am Yisrael, not in the sense of
abstractly loving the general nation, but acuallt feeling Ahava and concern for
each and every individual, Rav Tzvi Yehuda stressed that this meant loving
Tzaddikim, and the less righteous, together. Often, he would draw our
attention to the Hebrew word for congregation, or public, ציבור, Tzibur. According to an oral tradtion, the letters
of the word are the initial letters of צדיקים, בינונים,
ורשעים Tzaddikim, Benonim, U'Rashaim (Righteous, average and
wicked people.) This is the constitution of Clal Yisrael, Rav Tzvi Yehuda said.
All three types of people together.
The unparalleled love which Rav Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, and
his son, Rav Tzvi Yehuda, shared for all of Am Yisrael, finds particular
expression in the special mitzvah they shared as Kohanim, לברך את
עמו ישראל באהבה, bless the nation of Israel with love. The Kohanim
are a unique portion of Am Yisrael who have a special character, strength, and
mission, to bless out of an absolute purity of heart, and out of the deep
recognition that we are an Am Segula, a unique, Divine, eternal nation, wholly
given to Hashem.
In explaining the Ahava his father had for the world, Rav Tzvi
Yehuda told us a story. Once in a eulogy for an outstanding Torah leader, a
Talmid Chacham made some references to Rav Kook, without mentioning him by
name. He said that a certain Rabbi had been truly great in Torah, but that his
Ahavat Yisrael spoiled his stature. He was reefing, of course, to Rav Kook's
renowned Ahava and tolerance for the secular Zionist pioneers who had returned
to Israel to rebuild the Jewish homeland.
"In truth," Rav Tzvi Yehuda said, "One has to know that this
Ahava which my father, and teacher, זצ"ל, felt for Am
Yisrael, was not the normal, human understanding of love. Rather, he harbored a
profound understanding of Am Yisrael, and his love flowed from this".
Excerpts from Rabbi David Samson's book: "Torath Eretz
Yisrael"
|
Archives |
Publications |
Donations |
Overseas program & RegistrationEmail: mercaz@jer1.co.il
This site designed by Avi Kovacs, and hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page!
Comment's about the design? email me at avik@geocities.com
